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Tips for Underweight Children

In a country where many people suffer from obesity, it is tough to find information on how to help your kids gain weight. Here are some tips I've found to help my children and other family members put on weight. Please note that if your children are underweight you should have them evaluated by a doctor to see if their weight problems could be caused by underlying medical issues.

1. Track how many calories your child eats each day. Children can be underweight for a variety of reasons. Some may not have much of an appetite and may not be taking in enough calories. Another possible reason is that your child may be eating enough food but is not absorbing the foods he or she eats. Tracking daily calorie intake, even if just for a few days, can help to narrow down the possible causes for your child's low body weight.

You can keep track of this yourself with a pencil and paper in a notebook or if you are really serious about tracking their calories intake, you can buy a nutrition software program. The program I bought for my kids was called Nutribase. I bought this program and it was really an eye opener. It became obvious after just using the program for a few days that my kids simply were not taking in enough calories, let alone getting the RDA for all of the important vitamins an minerals. With this program you can enter what your child eats each day and compare the actual values to recommended amounts of calories, fats, protein and most vitamins and minerals based on your child's goal weight and activity level.

2. Zinc deficiency is one possible cause of a lack of appetite. Click here for a list of foods high in zinc. I know of a child who was given zinc supplements for attention deficit disorder and immediately grew in height and weight. Personally, I think it is better to try to get zinc from your diet rather than taking artificial supplements. This web site has a list of the symptoms that may be associated with zinc deficiency.

3. Since there are not many books on how to gain weight, I've found it is helpful to read diet books to understand how to lose weight and then do the opposite. Here are some tips for gaining weight gleaned from the book Volumetrics.

The basic premise of this book is that research has shown that people tend to eat the same volume (about five pounds) of food each day, whether that food is high or low in calories. The book contains charts that provide the energy density of a variety of foods. The object of the book is to show people how to lose weight by eating more of the foods with low energy density in order to feel full without going hungry.

For my underweight family members, I try to provide them with some of the foods listed in the book that are low in weight but high in energy density, but still healthy, like nuts and dried fruits. There are many foods in the book like cookies and doughnuts that have high energy densities but only provide empty calories. I try to avoid serving those at home and only focus on foods that are both nutritious as well as energy dense.

Relatively healthy foods with high energy densities:

  • Pasta tossed with with olive or canola oil and shredded cheese. I use pastas made partly with dried vegetables, such as spinach or tomato, for some added nutrition.

  • Nuts - almonds, pecans, pistachios, peanuts (technically a legume), cashews, etc.

  • Dried fruit - raisins, fruit leathers, dried bananas

  • Higher calories vegetables include peas, corn, potatoes and sweet potatoes.

According to the Volumetric's authors, water based drinks do not have much effect on appetite, so they caution to avoid high calorie drinks. However using this logic in reverse to gain weight, then it would seem like nutritious high calorie drinks, like homemade fruit and vegetable juices, may be helpful for weight gain.

4. According to some weight gain tips from my Ayurvedic (traditional Indian) medicine books, people who are underweight often do better with cooked foods. I think this is because cooking usually makes foods easier to digest. Cooking also helps destroy any bacteria, fungus, or other unwanted life forms that may be on the food. I know that a lot of people say raw foods are easier to digest, but from personal experience I would tend to disagree. Personally I think well cooked foods, especially foods that have been simmered for a long time, likes soups and stews, are easiest to digest.

5. This tip is obvious, but still worth mentioning: try to make reasonably healthy foods your kids really enjoy eating. Your kids will probably eat a lot more if what you serve tastes delicious. I bought some books with healthy recipe and snack ideas especially for kids to give me some more menu ideas.

6. Make plenty of foods for each meal. Serve foods buffet style so your child can easily help himself to as many servings as he wants to eat.

7. For dessert try serving fruit with real whipped cream for some extra calories.

Resources -

Healthy Weights for Healthy Kids: What Should I Do if My Child Is Underweight?

Good suggestions include: macaroni and cheese, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, crackers with hummus, barley and beef soup with cornbread, fruit smoothies made with ice cream, baked potatoes with broccoli and cheese, beef and barley soup and more.

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